That's the large headline the DomPost put over my letter published this morning:
Dear Editor
Your editorial of November 9 took Labour to task for promising to extend the In Work Tax Credit (IWTC) to all beneficiary parents. It correctly describes how Labour has done an about-face on what was originally their own policy. Back in 2006 Labour argued that work offered the best chance of economic and social well-being for children. Now Labour is saying that a higher benefit payment offers the best chance.
A large majority of the parents who would receive the extended IWTC are on the DPB. Many are there because they had children they couldn't support because they didn't have a partner. Numerous international studies have linked the rate of benefit payment to the rate of unmarried births. The higher the payment, the higher the rate of unmarried births.
Labour is taking a dangerous gamble in joining all the other Left parties with this policy. Should it be in a position to implement the policy after the election, there is every chance it will drive up the numbers of people who become dependent on the state long-term. And I can't believe that Labour doesn't know that long-term benefit dependence is known to be bad for children.
Dr Eric Crampton: Adventures in consumer protection
12 minutes ago
5 comments:
Fantastic letter - very tactful! :-)
This is why Labour may be accurately labelled a party for the stupid , the largely poor brown people and rabid socialists who know what best done with your money , for their voters . I also see the inimitable Sue Bradford citing as a reason for not demolishing state housing on million dollar section in Glen Innes , the fact that some of these families haver been there for three generations. FFS! so bloody useless that even with a state hand out/up for sixty years they cannot improve their lot in life ??
Every mother in this country knows that when you need to wean people off dependency , the first thing you have to do is remove the teat!!! in the case the public tit these bludgers have been draining for years . Surely any fool (except Labour) can see that increasing access to state largesse is the last thing you should do to promote independent effort and thought . Incentives to work ? what about starvation when self respect wont cut it ?
But if you remove the teat how else will you delver them the milk of dependency?...
It just shows how desperate Labour is, to suggest such lunacy. Shows they'll do anything for votes, anything to attain the levers of power.
Frigtening really, and rather amoral.
Labour know that long term welfare dependency is bad for children. They just don't care.
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